The CBI said that its probe had found that the two minor girls who were found hanging from tree in Uttar Pradesh’s Badaun in May had committed suicide and were not gangraped and murdered.

The sensational case had made headlines in India and outside and led to a political furore.

“Based on around 40 scientific reports, CBI has concluded that the two minor girls in the Badaun case had not been sexually assaulted and murdered as had been alleged in the FIR,” Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) spokesperson Kanchan Prasad said here.

“Investigation has concluded that it is a case of suicide,” Prasad said, adding the agency is likely to file its final report in the court “shortly”.

The girls, aged 14 and 15, were found hanging from a mango tree near their village in the last week of May.The CBI took over the charge of probe from the state police in June.

The officials also said that the height of tree was not such that the girls couldn’t have reached its branches. “We also conducted a dummy exercise of the incident to get this confirmed,” said an official, who did not want to be named.

He said a multi-institutional board, which was formed under a group of senior doctors from across the country also confirmed that the girls were not sexually assaulted.

“The board members closely watched the video recording of the post-mortem conducted on the girls and they reached to the conclusion that they were not raped,” the official said.

He said the prime eye-witness Nazru had given fake details of Pappu Yadav, 19, the main suspect, and four others.

He said that a night before their bodies found hanging from tree, the elder girl along with her younger sister met Yadav, who was her friend, near the house of Nazru. After being spotted by Nazru, the girls ran towards the field and Yadav also left.

Later, Nazru told local police that he saw Yadav and four others were dragging the girls near his house.

The investigators also found that Yadav and elder girl had talked at least 400 times on phone during the past few months.

On the question of framing Nazru for “plotting” Yadav in the case, the officials said that they will mention this in the final report before the court.

The officials also said that they recorded statements of at least 200 people during the investigation.